What was Russian society like in 1900-1914?
For the upper echelons of the aristocracy it was fabulous, they lived in huge palaces with every luxury imaginable. There was a middle class of minor aristocracy, the intelligentsia and merchants and professionals – it was from this class that much of Russia’s rich cultural heritage was drawn (winks to Slava). For most other people it was hell. Russia was a mostly rural, peasant country – they had to buy their freedom over 50years when they were freed (in 1861), and millions were still serfs (a bit like slavery). Housing was basic, wooden houses with no electricity and outside hole-in-the-ground outhouses. For workers the pay was poor, housing was diabolical, and the working day was 14 hours long – 6 days a week. For the large Jewish population in Russia it was terrifying, Tsarist gangs known as Black Hundreds, launched violent rampages, known as pogroms, against Jewish towns and villages, killing, looting and raping.
